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Parenting A RAD Kid. With love.

I'm sitting here, about to start another year of school, and I'm burned out and I'm exhausted and I'm frozen by indecision. How do I decide whether adding ballet to the schedule would be a helpful bit of structure and guidance, or would be one more burden to our lives? How do I know which doctor to choose? How do I know where to push and where to lay off? How do I know if she needs medication or just better parenting? Or maybe counseling again? Or maybe I need counseling? What aobut speech therapy? Occupational therapy? Physical therapy? Or maybe it's time for more reinforcement instead of consequences, even though the presentation of a potential reinforcement used to cause immediate shut down? Maybe she has too much stuff? Maybe she has too many distractions? Maybe she feels like a failure or a bad kid and can't get past that enough to make any kind of different decision? How do I get over my own frustration in order to love and forgive and move forward? How do I help her feel secure so she doesn't need to control this relationship anymore? What do I do? What do I do?

First off: don't panic. I didn't write this for you. I wrote it earlier, and posted it in a support group I'm a part of for parents of children with attachment disorders.

I am a parent of a child with an attachment disorder.

I need to start off by saying that, if you met her, you'd probably like her. She is sweet. She is adorable. She is full of smiles, she loves to laugh, and she loves everything that is female and pretty and girly. She gives hugs. She holds hands. And the first day I ever met her, she called me Mom. She told me she loved me.

A lot of people hear that last part, the part about the instantaneous declaration of love, and give a deep, heart-felt "awwww". They think it's sweet. Like it was a sign we were meant to be together. Like she was just so happy to be with us. But the thing is, it didn't feel sweet. It didn't feel like love. It felt like brokenness. Because no healthy, healed child would cling to a woman she had never met and call her Mommy. Whisper statements of affection. Instead, it was our first indicator of the deep hurt in this child's heart: The fact that, deep down, she didn't really know what it meant to love someone at all.

So for the uninitiated, Reactive Attachment Disorder happens when, during early childhood, for various reasons, an emotional bond is not made with a primary, trusted caregiver. While this disorder is considered rare, it exists with relative frequency among children who have been passed around between caregivers, such as children who grew up in orphanages or in the foster care system.

Many kids with this disorder become withdrawn, angry, aggressive, and destructive. But not all. My child, in fact, may seem overly affectionate. She sits on people's laps. She hugs constantly. She holds peoples hands and pets their faces and their hair. But if you're around her long enough, you maybe notice it feels... off. She doesn't like you to hold her. She wants to hold you. Because this behavior is not about showering loved ones with earned affection. It's about her desperate, deep, yearning need to control the feelings of actions of those around her.

Emotionally speaking, I once described it this way: It's like you're on a first date. You're trying to get to know this person, to see if you like each other, and she's making copies of your house keys and filling your drawers with her undergarments. You're testing the water with a toe, she dove in head first.

Along with this come another host of behaviors. Lies. Manipulation. Sneaking. Direct and repeated disobedience. Unwillingness or inability to follow simple daily routines and instructions. And screaming tantrums, that last long, but not nearly, not nearly as long as they used to. Along with this, although she is very upset when she is visited with a consequence, she hasn't, that I've noticed, ever displayed what might be considered true remorse in response to something she's done. She hasn't cared if she hurt some one. She hasn't cared if she was cruel, or dishonest, or disrespectful. And on my bad days, I am petrified that my child will not be able to develop a sense of bondedness, connection, or empathy.

Please don't hear me say that I think she's a terrible child. Because by NO MEANS is that the case. But raising a child who lies to you, screams at you, and then minutes later showers you with physical affection, it's emotional confusing. Your actual body, my actual body, can reject it. Can cringe back in response to the touch of my child. Which means that on some days, on some very hard days, it can take an actual force of will to engage in positive physical contact with my sweet, adorable, 7 year old child. I'm pretty sure there's no thing else in this world I'm more ashamed of than this.

I am ashamed. But I am not alone. Support groups and family and friends and many more amazing people have helped me along these 3 years. Have loved on my daughter, have loved on me, and have shared their own families, their own stories of struggle and clumsiness and the amazing labor it can sometimes be to turn a group of people into something that is a family. Which means even after my emotional breakdown earlier today, I had people to talk to, people in the trenches who reached out and shared their love and support and assistance. Good Lord, I love those people.

Oh right. And today, as I sat over my computer, shaking slightly and crying silently as I typed out the fears and questions that had overtaken my brain, my little girl walked up to me.

I saw that you were crying Mommy, and I'm sorry.
I'm sorry that I've been lying to you.
I'm sorry that I'm being someone who makes people cry.

I brought her to me, and I held her. Tightly, and for way too long. I am a parent to a child with an attachment disorder. But I am the child of a God who can heal all things, even those things as shattered as we are.

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Comments

I have no eloquent response. Just tears. Because I understand and am dealing with everything you have written. Thank the Lord, I have my husband and he has finally after 12 years with our dd learned to let me "just vent." Before it was "stop complaining." Thank the Lord for groups like you mentioned who help me to suck it up and try again." I have cried so many tears and cry more. I love my girl. I prayed for her for so long, but many days it is so much more than I bargained for. And now after years of searching, we are finally finding healing. Her brain is different - it always will be. I have learned to change and flex and compromise and be humble. Did the Lord bring her to me just for this? Oh heavens, let me learn the lesson for her and quick. We have the makings of beauty from ashes over here. Great is His Faithfulness.

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I'm a wife and a homeschool mom. I have a super great husband and four of the strangest, most adorable children I've ever personally had the pleasure of meeting. I work with kids with Autism. And I really, really love Jesus. I'm here to share some of that journey, the funny stories, the lessons learned, and all the craziness that comes along the way!